“Religion and the urban, natural and virtual environments” – An Online Conversation
(Summary by Lucy Spoliar)
A group of over 60 scholars came together on the afternoon of 27th August 2020 for an online conversation on “Religion and the urban, natural and virtual environments.” These themes were originally intended to be discussed over the course of the European Sociological Association (ESA) – Sociology of Religion Research Network three-day biennial conference, hosted at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies in Groningen. For obvious reasons, it became clear in March this year that such a gathering would not be possible. However, we decided that this should not prevent a discussion of the conference’s themes from taking place.
In our conversation, we aimed to adopt a broad approach to the study of the relation between religion and different “environments”: the urban environment, the natural environment and the virtual environment. In doing so, we hoped to stimulate a fruitful discussion of three areas of religious transformation and innovation, of high academic and societal relevance in contemporary European societies and beyond.
For our online conversation, we are very grateful that our three keynote speakers were willing to adapt to the virtual environment of our conference. Through their presentations and the Q&A session that followed, we were able to explore the questions mentioned above in nuanced, interweaving ways.
Our first speaker, Dr Pooyan Tamimi Arab, presented a paper entitled “Secularization and Religious Diversity in Iran 2020”. In this presentation, Dr Tamimi Arab shared the first results of a digital survey on religion in Iran designed and conducted by Ammar Maleki and Pooyan Tamimi Arab in June 2020. He situated why the Iranian context matters to the sociology of religion and what particular insights this context offers in thinking about secularization and religion. He went on to provide reflections on the methodological value of digital surveys, which can then be insightfully compared to state census data. The sample Dr Tamimi Arab discussed reveals significant disparities between the data found in digital surveys, which indicates secularisation and religious variation among Iranians, and that in status censuses.
After this, we heard Prof. Dr Jens Köhrsen speak on “A Climatic Change in Religion? From Religious Greening to Non-Greening and Un-Greening”. In this talk, Köhrsen began by unpacking the prevalent assumption that religions are gradually responding to environmental challenges over time (known as the “greening” of religion). This emphasis on “greening”, he argued, obstructs other pathways, such as passive “non-greening”, and “ungreening” countermovements. In this thought-provoking discussion, Köhrsen suggested that scholars may have overestimated the importance of green theologies.
Finally, Dr Giulia Evolvi reflected on her research in the context of the unprecedented digitization of religious communities prompted by COVID-19. By looking at recent cases of digital religion, Evolvi reflected on the importance of examining digital spaces as connected to tangible, material and spatial practices, and highlighted the fluidity and blurring of borders between online and offline practices, where religious identities and practices are negotiated within online environments.
A lively discussion followed, in which the three speakers firstly posed questions to one another and reflected on how their research contexts might intersect and diverge. Subsequently, the floor was opened to the audience who posed a range of questions to the speakers, which prompted further discussion.
We are very grateful to the keynote speakers and all those who participated for helping to make the event such a fruitful and enjoyable discussion. We now share the recorded conversation online, so if you did not manage to catch the event, you can now access it to watch (or rewatch!) at the following link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jJVkO4lFuS1Iz6ZZbGH378CJ33gLkBUh/view